Also, I would argue that you can't even really grade Joe's performance up until Gaglardi took over. His hands were almost completely tied. This is our first offseason where Joe has been allowed to operate without any constraints, and I am very pleased with the results.

Basically this.

The last few years, "hard to play against" and "pesky Stars" were euphemisms for "hey, we've got big brother Bettman on our @$$ and we don't have any money to work with, so live with this."

That said, I overall can't complain with Nieuwendyk's trades in aggregate. You can't expect to win every single trade out there. The Lehtonen deal is almost enough to make up for being possibly hosed in other trades.

I think legitimate criticism can be made about his drafting, though. Still hoping the best for Campbell, but skipping out on a slipping Cam Fowler was tough to take at the time. He was responsible for the Glennie pick too, right? Being a young-ish GM back then, Nieuwendyk may have had his hands tied a bit and had to rely a bit too much on scouts and such. (Wasn't some head scout or something fired a while back?)

One plus on his side is Nieuwendyk's ability to disregard any personal relationships he may have had with players (BIG problem with Hull).